


The Star-Crossed Lovers’ Guide to Not Getting Hurt

by hitchcock_blonde



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Archie is a good guy, F/M, Inspired by the leaked photos, Kiss Reggie Marry Jughead Kill Archie, Reggie is an idiot with a YouTube channel, Veronica and Archie have a love-hate relationship, You guys know which ones I mean ;), but i still hate him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-03 21:38:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10259018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitchcock_blonde/pseuds/hitchcock_blonde
Summary: “I’m pretty sure half the school thinks you’re hot now.”Jughead shot her his squinted are-you-kidding-me-right-now face.“What?”And that in itself—just the look of pure disbelief and confusion on his face—was enough that she couldn’t stop grinning. He wasn’t mad, he wasn’t mad, it was going to be okay.“Reggie taped it on his phone,” she clarified, the smile growing like a weed. (She shouldn’t be this happy, not now, but she was.) “And put it on YouTube. It’s going viral.”





	

Goddamn it, Betty Cooper was not going to get hurt by Archie Andrews again.

“Juggy!” she yelled.

More specifically, she was not going to let Jughead get hurt.

Betty tore down the street in the direction she’d _thought_ she’d seen Jughead’s retreating back take, loathing herself for doing this to him (Jughead who walked her home and called her Juliet and was always, always there), willing herself to go faster, faster, _faster_. This wasn’t fair to him, what she had done, it wasn’t, but she hadn’t known, she _hadn’t_ —she hadn’t even realized—how could she have been so stupid—?

She skidded to a stop when she saw him, slumped on a park bench with his face hidden, and tried not to think about how small he looked, defeated, like a burst balloon. He wasn’t moving.

“Juggy—“

At the sound of her voice, Jughead’s head snapped up. “Betts—!” He gulped. “I didn’t mean to go all Heathcliff on you—it wasn’t my business, I just—“

“Juggy--” Betty finally reached him, and when his hand reached out to find hers, a wave of warmth washed over her and battled with the sick feeling in her stomach. “I’m not mad,” she assured him. “Why would I be mad? I just—“ She sighed and flopped down next to him on the bench. “I just don’t get it.” Their eyes met, and she looked away. “I wasn’t meaning to send signals, honestly I wasn’t—“

“Betts.” He was there, of course he was, only inches away. Betty couldn’t stop herself from leaning in. “Betts, I—“

Their lips met, and if Betty could only have this one moment, she wanted it to last forever.  
No Archie, no Mom, just her and Jughead Jones and the feeling of his lips on hers, the soft touch of his hand on her back, and _let it last, please. Let him stay._

Too soon, he pulled away. “Betty, what’s wrong?” he insisted.

She almost laughed—what wasn’t?

“I didn’t mean to.”

His face was a mask of exasperation, but it was difficult to tell exactly _what_ the cause was.

“If it helps,” she tried, “he’s going to have a black eye tomorrow.”

Jughead snorted. “Seriously?”

Betty nodded. “And an emotional one. You were harsh.”

He groaned. “I’m sorry, Betty—“ he began, but she cut him off.

“It’s fine, Juggy, it—“ Why on earth did he imagine this was his mistake? “—it’s _so_ fine. Really. Don’t—you didn’t do anything wrong.”

It was almost impossible to believe, but he didn’t _seem_ mad. His lips quirked up, and it took every ounce of restraint in her to stop her from diving in to kiss him again.

“Besides,” she said instead, the warm feeling settling in her stomach like hot chocolate, “I’m pretty sure half the school thinks you’re hot now.”

Jughead shot her his squinted are-you-kidding-me-right-now face. “ _What_?” And that in itself—just the look of pure disbelief and confusion on his face—was enough that she couldn’t stop grinning. He wasn’t mad, he wasn’t mad, it was going to be okay.

“Reggie taped it on his phone,” she clarified, the smile growing like a weed. (She shouldn’t be this happy, not now, but she was.) “And put it on YouTube. It’s going viral.”

“Why?”

“Remember when you said that if a hamster eating a burrito can go viral, so could one of Reggie’s videos?”

Jughead swallowed and rolled his eyes. “Well, that was back when the drama level of the things Reggie put on YouTube was roughly equivalent to a hamster eating a burrito.”

“ _Well_ —“ With a few taps on her phone, Betty pulled up the video. “It has, like, 2 million views.”

She handed the phone to him, and he stared at it. “So…either, like, Dilton Doiley sat in front of his computer and watched one of the most humiliating moments of my life 2 million times, or…people who aren’t creepy manic survivalists are actually _interested_ in one of the most humiliating moments of my life. And wait, what do you mean, _hot_?”

Betty shrugged. “People like Byronic heroes.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Jughead interrupted. “I refuse to be Heathcliff. I _refuse_. Heathcliff is a menace.”

“You did sound a bit like him,” Betty admitted, still grinning. “Some of the same bad boy vibes.”

Jughead (only somewhat successfully) tried to bang his head against the back of the park bench. “I can’t even remember,” he complained. “I think I’ve blocked it out.”

“It’s all there,” Betty pointed out, gesturing to the phone. When Jughead hesitated, she added, “You should probably be aware of some of the things you said…for, you know, school on Monday.”

His face fell, and that sickening feeling surged back in full force.

“Jugs,” she murmured, “I thought you were never going to forgive me, okay? I don’t care what you said—you got hurt, and that’s _not your fault_ , so—“ (Eye roll.) “Hey—if I was you, right now, what do you think you’d be saying? Exactly what I’m saying, and you know that, so listen.” Betty took a deep breath and strengthened her resolve with a glance at Jughead’s eyes. “You don’t have to watch it. You don’t have to do anything—heck, you don’t have to stay with me, I owe you a hell of a lot more than you owe me—“

“Betts—“

“Don’t give me that, Juggy, you know it’s true—you can move on from this, that’s fine, I won’t stop you.”

“Betts—“

“But if you’re going to stay, if you want to stay, for whatever reason, for whoever—“

“Betts!”

“You’re going to have to deal with the fallout from this, and you’re going to need to be prepared, and—“ She broke off clumsily at the look on his face. He had the are-you-seriously-going-to-do-this-right-now-Betty-Cooper face again.

“Betty.”

“Jughead.”

He glared, but they both knew he’d been asking for it. “Betty. Not to be Heathcliff, but if I was going to briefly embrace my new _hot_ persona, I would say that in this scenario, _you’re the victim._ Not the perpetrator. And if you need to see the video to know that—“ He shrugged. “I’ll see the video.”

Betty bit her lip, trying and failing to hide her smile. “Okay. You ready?” He nodded, and she pressed play.

-

Archie had asked Betty to dance; Jughead remembered that much. At the sight of that, Reggie must have anticipated some sort of drama, which was uncharacteristically intelligent of him. What was not intelligent was his decision to zoom in and focus on Jughead’s face for a solid 15 seconds (his face looked mildly annoyed and wary, not even slightly attractive), before FINALLY turning away to find Archie and Betty in the crowd. By that time, Betty was pulling away while Archie gestured earnestly about something that seemed to make her extremely uncomfortable. She tried to say something indecipherable (damn the Pussycats’ too-loud music), and when Archie seemed oblivious she tried to leave, but he had her by the arm. His mouth moved in something that looked like, “Betty,” and then… was it “I was wrong”? Jughead itched to pause the video and go back to see—but then Archie closed his eyes and started leaning in, and when Betty leaned away he kept leaning (because of course it would never occur to Archie that Betty wouldn’t want to kiss him, he’d just think ‘oh, well, she’s a little farther away than I thought’—)

“Archie.”

It was his voice, and the camera swerved to catch him, standing now, much closer than he’d been before, and he must have said it multiple times without Reggie or anybody hearing him. Archie had opened his eyes now, but he hadn’t heard Jughead yet, and he and Betty were staring at each other with matching expressions of horror, for exactly opposite reasons, and “ARCHIE.”

He heard this time.

“What the hell was that.”

Jughead had never heard himself sound this angry in his life. He’d never thought he could sound this angry.

“What the hell. Archie—why the hell. Why would you do that—“

Archie looked petrified. “Jug, I—“

“Why.”

“Jug—“

“What did you say, Archie?”

“Jug!”

“Tell me. Tell me what you said. Tell all of them—“

“Jug—“

“Goddamn it, Archie, _listen to me_. Right now. You told me you were happy. For me, and for her. You were _happy_.”

“Jug, just—I can explain—“

“You know what, _dude_? This is a stab in the back. I thought you were finally going to let me have something that you didn’t have—sorry, Betty, you’re not a thing—but you don’t get it, you have _everything_. You have—“

“I don’t—“

“Well, let’s see, shall we?” the Jughead on the screen interrupted, practically frothing at the mouth, now. “Let’s count all the things Archie Andrews has that I don’t. One. A house. Two. A dad who’s worth a damn. Three. A dad who _gives_ a damn. Four. Friends—let’s see—Veronica, Valerie, the entire damn _football_ team, even f***ing _Cheryl_ once—“

“I did not have sex with Cheryl Blossom!”

“That’s not what I f***ing MEANT!” Jughead roared. “Betty—is—the _only_ —one—who has been—there—for me,” he snapped, jabbing an accusatory finger a bit closer to Archie’s jugular with each viciously enunciated word. “But you can’t stand it that I have something you don’t, right? You just can’t deal with that. Remember third grade? My birthday party?”

“I was a KID!” Archie yelled.

“YOU WERE IN THIRD GRADE!” Jughead bellowed back. “YOU SHOULD HAVE HAD SOME BASIC SENSE OF PROPERTY RIGHTS! You—“ He choked on his words and fell silent for too long, finally realizing: the gymnasium was frozen, fascinated. No one was moving. His eyes flickered to Reggie’s phone.

“I keep trusting you,” he said softly, sounding almost…broken. “I don’t _know_ why I keep _trusting_ you.”

“Jugs, I’m—“

“Don’t.” The word was clipped off, bitter.

“Juggy…” Betty whispered. Their eyes met, and damn Reggie’s phone, the quality was awful, it made it look like they were doing sheep eyes or something. Betty broke his gaze first, looking down at the floor, and screen-Jughead turned back to Archie, slightly more deflated than he had been before.

“Thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” he muttered like a curse.

“Jughead, I just wanted to say I was sorry,” Archie pleaded. “This has been a shitty year for all of us, I was with Grundy when I refused her the first time, things were different. I just wanted Betty to know that—well, that she has—options—“

“Options?” Jughead spat, looking as disgusted as present-Jughead felt. His face was twisted in a grimace. “ _Options_? Love isn’t options, Archie. Love isn’t—it isn’t a choice, it isn’t a weighing of—of pros and cons—‘this one’s got a better body, but this one has a 4.0’—you don’t get it, it’s different, it’s—“

“But what if she doesn’t love you?” Archie interrupted loudly.

Jughead visibly flinched.

Dead silence.

“Then you’re a really lucky guy, Archie,” he whispered finally. “Really lucky.”

“Jug—“

“I’m fine,” Jughead snapped automatically. “Leave me alone—” When Archie stepped forward, he fled, head ducked, like prey. Reggie was apparently smart enough to know that Jughead running was not in the least interesting to his viewers. In any case, the phone caught the ugly expression on Archie’s face as it contorted.

“YOU STOLE HER FROM ME!” Archie yelled after Jughead’s retreating back. “YOU STOLE HER!”

It also caught the look of pure unadulterated fury on Betty’s as her fist collided with Archie’s cheek, snapping his head sideways. “Don’t you dare,” she snarled. “Don’t you _ever_ say that—not _ever_ —“

Veronica rushed forward—to hold Betty back or to land a punch of her own, Jughead wasn’t sure—but Betty gave her such a ferocious glare that even Veronica Lodge quailed. “Let me be, V—“ She grabbed Archie by the collar and shook him. “You had no right,” she hissed, “no right to do any of it—Ronnie, I said let me be—how dare you, you—you son of a _construction worker_ , you—VERONICA LODGE, LET ME GO!”

Betty dropped Archie’s collar, shook off Veronica, glared at the assembled statues, and said quietly: “I’m going to go find Jughead.” She swept out.

The video ended with a 15-second close-up of Archie staring after her like a lovesick puppy.

Betty turned off her phone before YouTube could start playing its “next up” video—a hamster eating a burrito.

“Well. What do you think?” Betty asked him.

Jughead smiled to himself. _Son of a construction worker._

“If anyone came out of that video looking hot,” he said, “it was you.”

She groaned. “Juggy.”

“I mean it.”

Betty beamed at him. “I know you do. I just don’t get why it bothers you so much.”

“It just does, ‘kay? It just—it just does.” Jughead sighed. “Betty…Archie can pine all he likes. I don’t honestly care anymore. It doesn’t matter. I want you to know—“ He groped for her hand; she gave it to him, and he looped their fingers together loosely, carefully. “I choose you. If—you know. You choose me.”

There was a long, extended silence, and then Betty’s shoulders started shaking slightly, as though she were—crying?

Then she burst out laughing, and warmth erupted in Jughead’s chest, because Betty Cooper was giving him the you-have-to-be-kidding-me face. That was _his face_.

“Juggy,” she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, “of course I choose you.”

Then she kissed him.

If this moment lasted forever, Jughead thought, a smile in his lips and _I love you_ passing between them with the beauty of words too fragile for the open air (for now)—?

Well, he would be the happiest man on Earth.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work on AO3, and I’M SO EXCITED!!!! This pairing is seriously the most adorable thing in my life. Like seriously. I love them SO MUCH.
> 
> Betty’s mom needs some SERIOUS BASHING. There’s some hinting about Betty’s mental state, and the effects of having a mother who LITERALLY SAID “slut-shaming is when sluts get shamed.” NOT OK, ALICE. NOT OK.


End file.
